Rafa joins Aussie sports heroes to spruik Kia’s Tasman

Tennis legend Rafael Nadal is the latest sporting hero to front automaker Kia’s advertising campaign for its new Tasman ute, as the Korean car brand takes on Toyota and Ford.

Ash Barty leads a cavalcade of sporting stars promoting the Kia Tasman ute.

Tennis legend Rafael Nadal is the latest sporting hero to join the cavalcade of stars spruiking Kia’s Tasman ute in the latest installment of the brand’s advertising campaign.

Rafa joins Ash Barty, Pat Rafter, Jason Gillespie, Mike Whitney, Paul Harrogan, Luc Longley, Erin Phillips, Peter Daicos, Dane Swan, and Geoff Toovey in the new ad showcasing the Korean automakers first ever ute, which aims to take on the might of Toyota and Ford.

The latest ad, which launched last night during the State of Origin, heralds the long-awaited launch of the Tasman.

Kia GM of marketing Dean Norbiato told The Australian the Spanish tennis icon jumped at the chance to appear in the campaign and was thrilled with his line, “Is it a cashie?”. “To have Rafael Nadal use the saying, which is so embedded in Aussie vernacular, was so good, and he really loved it,” he said.

Mr Nadal has a long history with the brand, which has sponsored him since he was 17, and strong ties with the Australian market from his time down under for the Australian Open tournament.

His appearance in the ad sees the tennis star join a cavalcade of Aussie sporting greats who have featured in the entertaining ad campaigns which have delivered a strong dose of banter and laughs for audiences.

This banter has been a crucial strategy for the Kia brand, which has a huge job ahead as it earns trust and credentials, in a mature and highly competitive ute category, which is dominated by Toyota and Ford.

“We know that it’s a journey and we’re not naive to the fact that we’re going into a very mature category with some thousand pound gorillas that are very established and have been there for many decades,” said Mr Norbiato.

“We need to tick every box, and building the brand at the top of the funnel and being engaging with content is just one element. We need to work really hard on its capability story and telling that story. So it is a two-pronged strategy around brand awareness, nameplate recognition, familiarity, and then detailing to that target audience that we’ve not necessarily spoken to before in their vernacular.

“I’m really passionate about tapping into the vernacular of a target market. I think that gives you credibility and allows you to have a conversation,” he said.

“If you walk into a bar for the first time, you start carrying on and beating your chest about how good you are, you quickly get shut down by the old bloke who’s been sitting there day in, day out. But if you walk into that bar, you have a conversation, you listen first, and then you become part of the community, then you can have a voice. And that’s what we’re trying to do with this campaign is to just assimilate within to a new community that we haven’t spoken to before and very much be cognisant that there are some established players within it. We’re not going to be beating our chest. We just want to be part of the conversation to start and then build up what we stand for based on the credibility and capability of our product.”

Kia’s entertaining approach was winning over audiences with the entire brand benefiting from the Tasman campaign.

“We’ve seen strong results off the first Tasman campaign for the whole Kia brand, not just that product. We had our biggest uplifts in brand consideration and brand intention in the first quarter post the Tasman ad launching last year. And obviously market conditions will dictate that a little, but we’ve extended that brand push through The Australian Open this year,” said Mr Norbiato.

Mr Norbiato said the brand’s campaigns for its electric vehicle range, which focused on the benefits of a quiet electric vehicle in a zombie apocalypse, had also connected well with consumers helping its EV5 jump from ranking as the tenth best-selling EV to the third-best selling last month after moving 700 units.

“We try and think from the consumer perspective to provide a utility for them. To entertain and give them something before you try to sell them something. It’s really easy to make a car ad, the formula is a car drives over the cliff, through the water, show the front and finish. It’s tougher to make something entertaining. We’ve tried to flip the script and entertain first, sell second and it not an easy path. But it’s one that’s bearing fruit, so far.

“The strategy was always, we wanted to be inherently Australian. It’s the most Australian product we’ve ever created. It’s made with Australian steel. We’ve been very proud of that fact.

“This is a tool of trade built specifically for tradies and Aussie tradies so it was just natural that we got our sports stars that are endemic to this campaign to lend a hand and roll up their sleeves and put them to work. I think the team has done a tremendous job making it entertaining but it also helps position the product as very much that tool of trade.

“Whether that translates into sales will be the ultimate test, but I feel that we’ve done a tremendous job in the set up,” said Mr Norbiato.

The campaign, which was created by Kia’s creative agency INNOCEAN, will roll out nationally across OOH, TV, digital social media channels, in a bid to help the brand drive potential customers into dealerships to book test drives.

Kia has previously stated its hopes to sell 20,000 vehicles in the first 12 months, a significant challenge for the category which achieves over 230,000 sales annually, with the majority of share held by market leaders Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger.

Mr Norbiato previously told The Australian that gaining respect from its tradie target audience would be the key to success.

“The tradie is the quickest to call bullshit on marketing puffery. So from our first campaign, it was important that we struck the right tone, the nicknames and a bit of banter kind of allowed us to get on their level and seek a bit of permission to introduce our product.

“I think creative is the best differentiator of brand that there can be. Getting audiences to paid attention, that attention is the most valuable commodity of all,” said Mr Norbiato.